


You'll Hear Your Brother's Cry

by Eugara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Sam, Episode Tag, Episode: s12e11 Regarding Dean, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Top Dean, Unrequited Weecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:51:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9656321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eugara/pseuds/Eugara
Summary: Coda toRegarding Dean(12x11). It’s a funny thing, having a human being as his rock. The emotional center of his world. Sam knows the dangers, the risks and psychological pitfalls of being too reliant on his brother. He just doesn’t think hisheartdoes. After all, it’s not like it’s ever listened to him anyway.





	

They make it back to the bunker around eleven. Dean had driven straight up from Eureka  Springs with only a single break for an early dinner in Missouri, courtesy of one _Pappy’s Diner_ —the only joint directly on their route home—where the food tasted like reheated ass and, somehow, looked even worse. Sam couldn’t find it within himself to complain though. It was like Dean was making up for lost time, gluing himself to the seat of the Impala as an apology for forgetting how to drive her. Refusing to relinquish the wheel for even one more minute than he had to. No matter how brief his lapse actually was.

Sam swings his backpack onto the library table with a muted thud and swallows back the sudden lump in his throat. He can’t possibly fault his brother for it. Sam knows he’d been jarred just as much as Dean and then half again, and _he_ wasn’t even the one going through any of it. He drops into the nearest chair and listens to the sound of heavy boots clanging down the metal stairway to the bedroom hallways, Dean unpacking his own crap in his room like a responsible human being. Sam runs an exhausted hand over his mouth at the thought. They still have to grab the grimoire from the back seat and find a place for it in here somewhere. Although Sam can’t say he’s looking forward to that accursed thing being in his eye line every day.

It was scary—scratch that, it was goddamn _terrifying_ —seeing Dean like that. Even just thinking over yesterday’s events sends a literal shiver racing down Sam’s spine. He’d like to think he’d held it together well, kept his head on straight when Dean needed him to carry a little more extra weight than usual, but the ugly, truthful part deep inside of him can’t justify the two solid hours he’d spent writing post-it notes as a useful expenditure of time. He’d freaked out a little bit between hoping the curse would get better on its own and waiting for Rowena to show up, he’ll readily admit it. The same way he always does when Dean’s not fully _there_ —by any definition of the term. Whether Dean’s six feet under or off his game due to Hell trauma or magically fourteen fucking years old again, it’s like there’s an internal switch that gets flipped to ‘silent panic’ no matter how he tries to cover for it. Sam can’t ever function right when his brother—his _whole_ brother—isn’t there at his side.

He lets out a long sigh and flicks a fingernail at the empty coffee cup still perfectly in its place on the table in front of him. He’d drained it and then left it, right where it’s sitting, when they’d first caught this case. Weird to think it’s only been a couple of days since then. Somehow it feels longer. Although, _everything_ feels a little weird now after Guantanamo-lite, like Sam’s having just the slightest trouble getting time to flow normally in the aftermath. Dean had to be the one to tell him how long they were actually locked up, back in Colorado. Six weeks. Sam hadn’t even thought to keep track. It all just kind of blurred together in an endless routine of exercise and sleep and an agonizing absence of Dean.

The porcelain is chilly when Sam finally gets a hand around the small mug, dried ring of brown around the inside and still smelling faintly of coffee and dust. Though, to be honest, coffee isn’t actually what he’s craving right now. He didn’t lie to his brother earlier, he _has_ thought about curling up inside a bottle now and again. He just hasn’t yet. _Won’t_ , more likely. Sam can’t help the tiniest quirk of his lips when he thinks about why that is.

They’ve barely left the bedroom in two weeks. Although ‘bedroom’ isn’t really all that accurate. More like, they’ve barely come up for air. Every inch of the bunker has been fair game ever since Mom left. The shower bank, the dungeon, the war room table, _four_ separate cars in the MOL motor pool—the kitchen even, once Cas had split to find Kelly after all that crap with his old garrison. It’s like being locked up, alone for that long, had jostled all the recent, hinky sex hang-ups right out of Sam’s head. One good thing to come out of that mess, he supposes.

“You want some more coffee?” Dean asks, low and casual, from behind his shoulder. “Or are you just having fun molesting the cup?”

Sam instinctively relaxes at the sound of his voice, muscles loosening as he tips his head back to smile upside-down at his brother. “Why?” he tosses back automatically, “You feeling left out?” Though he knows Dean is already thinking about getting him a refill, no matter what Sam’s answer might be. His brother’s been weirdly solicitous the last few months. Even well before Colorado. Cooking more than he usually does and bringing Sam whatever he asks for, even if it’s only just across the room. He’s not quite sure whether it’s a side-effect of Dean dealing with Mary’s constantly fluctuating presence in their lives, or guilt over what Sam had eventually broke down and told him about Toni, or maybe just overcompensation leaking out in any other direction it could find while he wasn’t able to take care of Sam through the usual fucking—Dean too used to using his body instead of his words, the same way he has ever since they’d first started this thing. Sam knows it’s all sorts of unhealthy and messed up and getting exponentially worse the deeper they both tangle themselves up in it, but he also knows he could never truly put a stop to it. He’d never want to. No matter the consequences.

Sam finally puts his cup down and kicks out the empty chair next to him before Dean actually starts heading to the kitchen, suddenly desperate to have him stay within his eyesight for the foreseeable future. His brother had cooled it with the pseudo-butler act the last couple weeks, once they’d started hooking up again on the regular, and he can’t help but wonder what’s brought it back now. Maybe just the uncertainty of induced amnesia.

Dean settles down in the offered seat with a contented exhale of breath, clearly comfortable in his body and mind again in a way that feels like too-hot lightning bottled up within Sam’s chest as he watches him. “Yes, Sam,” he says calmly, after a full minute of silent staring. “I remember us. You can unclench.”

 _Oh_ —Sam realizes stupidly, unable to hide the resulting flush rising up in his cheeks. He’d been subtly needling at Dean the whole car ride home. Or, at least he _thought_ he was being subtle, bringing up random, scattershot memories from their past just to test if Dean really was all better. He was trying to be as offhand as possible with his comments though. A cattle farm on the side of the highway would lead him to bring up the time Dean took him cow-tipping in Omaha when he was ten. A fast food sign would trigger a mention of that amazing hole in the wall restaurant with the ten dollar steaks.

He _knows_ —knows for a fact deep in his heart—that Dean must have forgotten about them at some point. He’d forgotten his own name and how to drive and Sam’s _face_ so there’s no way he didn’t forget about their… _them_. He must have eventually. Sam just didn’t want to come out and outright ask about it. He had to have been pretty fucking obvious though, if Dean could read him just from what he didn’t say.

So Sam ditches the coy routine and decides to tackle the subject head-on. “Rowena knows about us,” he says bluntly.

“Like mother, like son,” Dean grumbles, lifting an eyebrow in his direction, and Sam can’t help the flood of relief at his brother’s casual response. “You say something to her?” he asks. Then he scrunches up his forehead with a frown. “Wait, did _I_ say something?”

Sam breathes out a little half-laugh through his nose and shakes his head. “‘No’ and ‘not that I’m aware of’,” he reassures his brother. “Honestly, I don’t know how she knew. Just figured it out, I guess. Like they all do eventually.” And isn’t that the ugly truth? No matter how they try to hide it, no matter how careful they think they’re being, everyone seems to see right through them. Sam very steadfastly _doesn’t_ think about what might happen if Mary actually does end up spending any prolonged amount of time around them. He rubs at one eye with his fingers—harder than necessary—to chase that worrisome thought out of his head. “She made some smartass dig about me checking out your body hair. I tried to throw her off, but who knows if it worked.” Sam shrugs a little, but mainly decides to let it go. “That ‘Skinemax’ comment of yours probably didn’t help any.”

Dean blinks for a moment as he tries to recall, then winces a bit. Though the initial embarrassment slowly bleeds into something like enjoyment as it settles over his features. “Didn’t remember a goddamn thing about us,” he says smugly, “but I still knew watching your ass would be better than a skin flick. Knew it in my bones.”

Sam should probably be a little insulted, or offended, or take your pick of any negative adjective, but the bluntness of his brother’s honest pride just makes him feel all warm inside. “Knew it in _one_ bone maybe,” he mutters playfully through his fingers, but a smile still spreads beneath his hand.

Dean chuckles at his joke, but the air’s suddenly a little heavier around them than it was just moments ago. “I remember everything,” he says quietly, scooting his chair closer into Sam’s space. “Okay, Sam?” He places a warm, heavy hand on Sam’s bicep, callouses catching at the thin material of his shirt. “All of it. I swear I do.”

“I know,” Sam whispers, meeting his brother’s sincere gaze. But he doesn’t, not really. It’s more a matter of faith at this point and Sam’s got that in spades. “But it—” he tries, his throat closing off before he can finish. The stress of the past day unexpectedly surges up out of nowhere and he can’t stop his voice from cracking. “Dean, it wasn’t _you_. At the end there, it wasn’t—” He sucks in a shaky breath and tries to force out enough volume so that his words don’t just sound like broken, inaudible whispers. “It wasn’t just you not remembering stuff. You were different. And then,” he frowns, “you were kind of exactly the same, regardless of the spell. And then you’d be _off_ again and—”

“Hey, shh,” Dean cuts him off softly. “C’mon, Sammy. It’s me, okay? Real me.” He gets a grip on Sam’s chin and forcefully tilts his head up again. “ _All_ me.”

Dean holds his stare for what feels like forever, causing Sam to shake a little underneath his brother’s fingertips. Like they haven’t made love in months instead of only two days. _Made love_. Sam snorts under his breath at his own thoughts. Dean would dump a glass of ice water down the back of his shirt if he’d heard that.

But Dean must take the dismissive sound as disbelief because he closes the space between them. “I remember that little, abandoned house in Kentucky with the detached barn out back,” he says intimately, barely an inch of air separating them, “and I remember getting rid of that poltergeist who kept trashing the place even though no one asked us to.” He slowly slides his hand up Sam’s arm to tangle in the shirt collar at the back of his neck. “I remember, afterwards, we stayed in that barn all night long because of the rain.” Sam’s eyes go prickly at the quiet memory, but he doesn’t say a word to interrupt. “And we sat up against those fucking awful stacks of wet, uncomfortable, spiky-ass hay _for_ -freaking- _ever_ until you fell asleep against my shoulder.” Dean smiles warmly, despite the complaining. “And I remember thinking to myself, ‘How in the goddamn world could he possibly manage to sleep like that?’, but I didn’t move until morning.”

Sam swallows hard around the emotion in his throat. His licks his lips to part them, planning on saying _something_ in reciprocation, but he can’t seem to force a word out.

Dean just holds his smile. “I also remember,” he says, soft and dark, “how much you like it when I touch you here.” And then there’s a thick, gun-calloused finger gently tracing along the lines of his hips, dipping below his waistband to scritch over unseen skin. A slow shiver meanders up Sam’s spine—the good kind this time—and his dick twitches _hard_ in his jeans over what has suddenly become foreplay. “I remember how you taste,” his brother whispers, hot breath brushing over his temple and plush, soft lips against the shell of his ear. “… _Everywhere_.” Sam shudders fiercely, twisting around to violently capture Dean’s mouth with his own, and his brother’s next words are dropped haltingly right onto Sam’s willing tongue. “I remember…every single noise you make…when I’m inside you.”

He sucks in a sharp breath from Dean’s lungs, feeling a little light-headed already, and lets it out on an embarrassingly helpless groan. “Hey,” he says weakly, smiling at the irony, “remember when we said we were gonna cool it while Mom was around?”

Dean grins widely against his mouth and Sam can feel it more than see it. “Yeah, and that plan lasted, what? All of a week?”

Not even, actually. They’d ended up falling into a tiny motel bed after that psychic case in Mason City. A bungled, awkward attempt that had ended in neither of them getting off and Sam irrationally unsettled that Dean was gonna leave him, for real this time, for a good twenty minutes or so before he’d finally calmed down. But Dean had let him lay against him, his arms wrapped around his older brother like the world’s clingiest, most anxiety-ridden spider monkey, and he’d stayed right there until Sam’s heart rate had returned to normal.

They’d managed something a little more successful during the whole L.A. thing. Seeing Dean wearing _his_ t-shirt for their rock star ruse and, vice-versa, being wrapped in Dean’s own crew-neck, revved something up in Sam that not even the memories of Toni could knock loose. It wasn’t exactly full-on _sex_ —more messy grinding and fully-clothed groping than anything else—but it involved mutual orgasms, so Sam’s damn well counting it. It _was_ a little pitiful though, in hindsight, especially when compared to the rampant streak of debauchery that followed their prison break.

“Plus,” Dean continues his thought, bringing Sam back to the present, “Mom’s _not_ around.” There’s still just the slightest hint of bitterness to his words, but it’s less present than it used to be. Her repeated flights tend to rub Dean so much rawer than they do Sam, so he’d more than expected his brother to spit acid when she’d told them she’d be leaving again after driving them back home. Surprisingly though, it seems like Dean’s becoming more accustomed to it the more it happens. He’d barely reacted at all this time.

Sam lets out a burst of heated breath over Dean’s jawline and pushes the solemn thoughts out of his head. He’d much rather be here in the moment than linger on any more unpleasantness tonight. “I need you right now,” he says simply, pressing a kiss to the skin he can reach. “Need you to be _you_.”

And Dean is up from his chair and reaching out a hand to lug Sam up as well before anyone can think twice about it.

They head to Dean’s room by unanimous, silent decision because his brother’s a bossy fucker and he whines like a spoiled kid when he’s forced to do anything on Sam’s mattress. They pass by his own room, then the one their mom’s been using on and off, and Sam can’t stop himself from appreciating her absence just a tiny bit in the privacy of his own mind, even as he misses her constantly. He can’t help it. There’s something wonderful about not having to explain himself to anyone, the freedom of being able to…well, _love_ whenever he wants. No need for any justifications or flimsy excuses. Like, Dean had borrowed a book from him that he needs to retrieve right now for some reason, or they’re planning on having a couple of beers before bed in Dean’s room even though realistically there’s no place for them both to sit, or they’re gonna watch something on Dean’s laptop despite the fact that Sam’s got an actual TV in his own room. Lies they’ve told to Kevin, Cas, Charlie—even Crowley—again and again and again.

Dean crosses the threshold first and Sam lingers in the doorway for a minute, leaning against the wood frame and just watching his brother. Dean knows that Sam is staring, he _must_ , but he continues on into the room anyway, gradually stripping the shirts from his back with each step he takes toward the bed. He never turns around fully, letting Sam take a needed moment or focusing on unlacing his boots or something else entirely, but there’s something maddeningly sensual about the entire thing as he slowly, silently undresses. He’s bare from the waist up by the time Sam finally steps inside, his pale skin smooth and firm under the halogen lighting, but Dean doesn’t startle or flinch when he wraps his hands around his older brother’s hips. He just reaches back and up to rest his own fingers against the nape of Sam’s neck. It’s gotta be a bit of a stretch holding still like that, but Dean doesn’t move an inch until Sam squeezes once, and then his brother is calmly twisting around in his arms to deftly undo the buttons of his overshirt. Sam’s still caught a little dumb under the spell of the moment, though he does manage to slip off his own boots to help, and it isn’t until the blood red fabric of his shirt goes flying past the corner of his eye that he knows what he wants to say.

“ _I_ remember,” Sam whispers roughly, echoing back Dean’s words from earlier, “ _ages_ ago, you were—” He rolls back through his high school memories, trying to pinpoint the exact year. They were in Ohio, that motel with the drained pool that the neighborhood kids would always use as a skate ramp. Which means he’d been going to Park Hills High at the time, the place he’d spent the third quarter of his junior year, which means he’d been sixteen. Sam spares half a silent second to do the math. “You were twenty-one. Just turned.” And that’s right, he remembers, Dean had been. Out at bars until the wee hours of the morning every other night. So excited about his real license that he’d practically lived on shots and bar food for a month straight, never mind the fact that he’d been in and out of dives with a handful of fake IDs for at least three or four years already. Dean finishes slipping Sam’s v-neck over his head and hums to show he’s listening. “You came in at like five o’clock in the morning,” Sam continues, not even bothering to smooth down his hair, so Dean does it for him, “it was barely even still dark out. Smelling like booze and cigarettes and, like, four different kinds of perfume.” He lets out an amused huff of breath. “So not too different from yesterday morning, really.” Dean pins him with a look, but it’s a fond one. “And you woke me up because you were loud as shit stumbling all over the place. You basically collapsed onto your bed, flat on your back, and conked out pretty much immediately.” Sam shakes his head a little bit at the ancient memory, relentless affection coloring his words. “You were so fucking drunk, dude. And I turned over, all groggy, to yell at you and…you had this pristine lipstick print right on the base of your neck.” He tentatively traces his fingertips over the same spot, feeling Dean swallow underneath his touch. He can still remember it, clear as day, even a decade and a half later. A pale pink smudge smeared right over the hollow of Dean’s throat. “I wanted more than anything to put my own mouth there.”

Dean sucks in a low, controlled breath, but Sam can feel him tremble a little where his hands are still gripping him. His abdomen and his arms going tense as he tries to let Sam finish.

“I was lying awake,” Sam says tightly, “five in the morning, hard as I’ve ever been, and _aching_ to press my teeth against your skin when you were sleeping not two feet away. I mean, I wouldn’t have,” he backpedals quickly, blinking as he comes back from the vivid memory. “Not then. I wouldn’t have dared.” Dean tosses him a measured smile, but it’s clear he’s losing patience for Sam’s self-castigation. His brother doesn’t really like talking about that time of their lives—or at least, not when _this_ is the subject matter. There’s too much he can’t reciprocate and delving too deep into Sam’s teenage desires always gets him all cagey. He hadn’t fallen quite as young as Sam had. “Didn’t even jerk off or anything either,” Sam says, pushing his luck. “I was sure, ridiculously _sure_ , that Dad would walk in the second I touched myself. He wasn’t even due back for another two or three days, but I was still scared fucking stiff.” He lets out a hitched breath as Dean suddenly tilts forward, grazing his teeth against one of his nipples so that Sam will finish his story. “But I wanted to,” he gasps out, and it’s as good a place as any to end it. He wraps his hands around his brother’s biceps and grips tight, silently urging him not to stop.

And Dean doesn’t, moving across Sam’s chest with lips and teeth as he slips his arms around his back. He gets caught up in it a bit too—something Sam will never complain about—lost in worshipping every bit of skin he can reach until he eventually remembers to walk them both back to his bed. His turn now. “I remember,” he says, “not that long ago, you were sitting in the library.” He pushes Sam onto the bed, playful, then follows him down, hovering over him on his hands and knees. “It was,” Dean sucks at his teeth a little bit, like he’s searching for an even keel. “It was when I had the Mark,” he relents, a little quieter, and Sam understands the hesitation now. “And it was always hot, always violent, no matter what—even when I was ten miles away from killing something. You were sitting there reading something, or researching something maybe,” he clarifies, “and all I could think about was shoving you down onto the table, pulling your hair, fucking you from behind, _hard_.” Dean’s lips go tight with guilt, a silent apology, as if Sam doesn’t know all this already. As if Sam hadn’t lived through it. As if he wouldn’t have let Dean do whatever he wanted, Mark or no Mark, anything he could’ve asked. “But then you shifted your head a little,” Dean says, “and your hair fell into your eyes. And all of a sudden, the only thing that mattered was sweeping your bangs back so you could see. And that was it.” He sounds a little pained, but it’s dwarfed by the pure tenderness in his eyes. “Drowned out the Mark completely.”

Sam smiles at the vague recollection. “I remember that too,” he says, mostly truthful. He intentionally doesn’t bring up the fact that Dean _had_ fucked him up against the wall of one of the bunker hallways only a couple hours after that. Hard, like it always was during that year—worse as the months wore on.

His brother’s moment still has meaning.

Dean descends onto Sam’s neck at his affirmation, frankly using an _unfair_ amount of tongue and then starts another story, blatantly cheating without an ounce of remorse. “I remember after we got back from 1861, and I was so jazzed about the cowboy shit I got to keep, I couldn’t get out of Bobby’s sight fast enough.”

Sam laughs out loud at the unexpected memory, tossing his head back and wrapping his arms around his brother’s shoulders. “You dragged me down to the panic room. Oh god, and that _terrible_ cot.”

“Pretended making those bullets took me three times as long as they actually did,” he admits with a grin. “Then I rode you.” Dean leans in until they’re sharing breath and Sam has to go a little cross-eyed to keep him in focus. “Rode you like _Larry the bull_ ,” he jokes, smothered laugh and a waggle of his eyebrows. “You remember that?”

“Yeah, I do,” Sam grumbles in pretend irritation. “Mostly ‘cause you insisted on wearing that stupid hat the whole time.”

Dean chuckles hotly. “And then when you came, you slipped out from underneath me and grabbed it, one-handed, and put it right on your own head.”

Sam wets his bottom lip at the reminder, then digs his teeth into the skin. He’d blown his brother, there on his knees on the cement floor of Bobby’s basement, glancing up from under the wide brim the entire time because eye contact has always been the best way to get Dean to blow his load.

Though he might not need it this time. His brother is already breathing a little heavier now, all hot and bothered from his own words in this game he’s invented. “Lube,” he growls under his breath, and Sam is already reaching for it before Dean can pull in his next inhale. Reaching out to fumble at his brother’s bedside table before tossing the half-empty bottle at Dean’s bare chest, not even bothering to close the drawer. Dean chews at his own lips for a moment, glassy-eyed and flushed as he works at opening the thing, and Sam suddenly, desperately needs to taste them.

“Kiss me,” he pants, and Dean’s knees go weak at the order. He practically tumbles down on top of Sam to ravage his mouth, eager and wet and with more teeth maybe than he’d usually use, but Sam’s not planning on stopping him. He moans against his brother’s lips and wraps his hands around his head to keep him in place, holding him tight as Dean grinds down against him and sends little shocks of magic shooting up Sam’s spine. But after a minute or so, something twinges a little…off in Sam, and the discomfort gets him yearning for something more familiar. Aching for something more _Dean_  after all the uncertainty and terror of watching his brother rapidly slip into someone else before his eyes. “Wait,” he whispers, unsure if Dean can hear him at first. “Wait, seriously stop. I need you.” Sam pushes back a little harder until he can catch his brother’s gaze and make sure he’s listening. “Dean, I need _you_.”

And something goes devastatingly soft in Dean’s eyes as he nods, a shallow bob of his head, and then reaches out to card his fingers through Sam’s hair. He slowly sinks back down without a word, grazing against Sam’s lips with the barest touch. Hovering there so that they’re just breathing together, fingertips cradling the back of his skull. All tender adoration and gentle control as he carefully presses forward, soft and warm and so Dean that Sam wants to cry with it. But the only thing he can force out is his brother’s name, hushed and watery.

“I’m right here, baby,” he whispers against his skin.

And Sam has to tighten his throat to stop from embarrassing himself. “I know.” And he does this time, he truly does.

Dean meticulously undoes the catch of his belt—hands that Sam knows have killed three people in the last two days incomparably gentle against the skin of his abdomen and hips—and then he sets to working at his own. Sam gets his jeans and shorts stripped off completely by the time Dean’s done with unbuckling his belt, and his eyes blow out so black so suddenly by the time he glances up that Sam could get off on that image alone. Dean clumsily kicks off his own jeans, his cock straining wet against the dark material of his boxers and his biceps heavy as he slinks over him, one elbow by the side of Sam’s head holding him up entirely.

There’s a blunt, wet push against Sam’s hole far before he expects it, distracted by Dean's eyes on his, two fingers pressing in unceasingly even though he’s still fairly open from their last time. The sheer surprise forces a short gasp out of him, but it’s just more of what he’s been craving. His brother always does this first, even when Sam doesn’t need it, _especially_ when he doesn’t need it. His fingers always carefully testing to make sure he’ll never hurt him. And _this_ is the only thing he’ll ever need. Dean, alive and wholly himself. Showing Sam who he is with every word and every breath and in everything he does.

“I remember,” Dean says, gruff and intense, “after I picked you up from Stanford. After I went and got you and brought you back to me where you _belong_.” A younger Sam would have bristled at that sentence. Wouldn’t have been able to help the immediate frisson of resentment it would have prompted. This Sam simply nods his head against his brother’s pillow and pushes back onto Dean’s fingers as ardently as he can. “It was right after we fought that kelpie in Florida. And your whole duffel got dunked in the swamp, with you attached to it.” Yeah, Sam remembers that miserable hunt. It was the summer of that year, hot and interminably humid, and he’d had to make do with whatever clothing he could scrounge together from Dean’s bag until they’d been able to wash everything, spending the entirety of the next day in the cheapest Laundromat they could find. “And we were back at the motel,” his brother says, eyes blown dark and fixed on Sam’s own, not even glancing at the hand he’s got pumping in and out of his ass, “and you had taken a shower, and you were sitting there at your laptop in nothing but your boxers.” Dean licks his lips and swallows hard. “In _my_ boxers,” he lets out as a breathy groan, his hard cock a hot, damp brand against the back of Sam’s thigh through wash-worn fabric. “Yours were all sopping and ruined so you were wearing _mine_. And I remember staring at you and wanting this so bad it hurt.” He falters a little, and the mood dips back down to reverent. “Just _this_. You in my bed, in some crazy universe where I was allowed to touch you." Then Dean goes silent for a moment, like the words have to be dragged from his teeth. "I wanted it more than finding Dad," he admits shamefully. "More than hunting down Yellow Eyes. _Fuck_ , Sammy, I wanted it more than I wanted to see Mom again. Just your scrawny ass sitting there, across the room from me.”

Sam’s not as lean now as he was then, but it doesn’t matter. Twenty years ago, or ten, or this immediate moment, it’s all the same thing. He and Dean are still exactly the same somehow. Sam would say something to that effect out loud, but he doesn’t think he needs to. His brother already knows.

“And now it’s real?” Dean asks on an incredulous breath. “How is it even freaking possible that I have this? Any of this?” His hand has stilled now, resting limp against Sam’s inner thigh, and he slowly realizes that Dean is actually asking.

Sam pushes up onto his elbows, their chests brushing against each other with every breath, and waits until his brother is meeting his gaze before he speaks. “Because you’re it for me, Dean,” he says plainly. More honest than he’s ever been. “Everything that I’ve ever wanted. Or needed.” He doesn’t say _loved_. He doesn’t need to, even though Sam thinks he might actually be able to get away with it right now. Dean’s lessened up on curtailing their deeper emotions the past few years. Ever since Sam helped him shuck the black eyes. “You know that,” he says with a soft smile, leaning forward to press a kiss to a sharp cheekbone. “Dean, you know that.”

And then, miracle of miracles, Dean actually nods. He turns into Sam, tucks his head against his temple and breathes out heavily. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispers, lips Sam knows better than his own brushing over hypersensitive skin. “I’m so sorry I forgot.”

But Sam just shakes his head. “We figured it out,” he says with a trembling smile, and even though Dean can’t see it, Sam hopes he can hear it in his voice. “We figured it out, Dean.” The second half of their shared mantra goes unsaid, but the hope of it still hangs between them.

“Yeah,” Dean says quietly, and then he nods once more before slipping his clean hand through Sam’s hair, holding him in place for another kiss. Hot and intense and thorough. Waves of pure want steadily washing over them both until Sam could drown in it and never regret a thing. “Yeah,” his brother says again, pulling back a hair’s breadth, but their lips still cling tacky everywhere Sam chases forward, not ready for the kiss to end yet.

Dean chuckles at his eagerness, a gentle puff of breath into Sam’s mouth, and he swallows it down to make room for more. His cock is throbbing, neglected, where it’s pressed up against his abs, but the minute Dean reaches down to curl careful fingers around it, Sam bucks up against him, choking on the electric spark of pleasure that zings through him. “Oh fuck, no, don’t,” he pleads choppily, gasping for air and wrapping his hand around Dean’s own to still it. He’s never been as much of a fan of foreplay as his brother, more interested in the main event than the teasing that Dean goes in for, and right now he thinks he might actually explode if the sheets even so much as brush against him.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean breathes out, his mouth parted and his tongue resting against the wet line of his bottom lip. He apparently pulls himself together enough to drag his eyes away from Sam’s lower half, yanking his boxers off to efficiently slick himself up with the remaining lube on his hand, and then lining them up in one easy move. The motion as familiar as a gun in his brother’s palm, muscle memory there to fill in the gaps between their souls if either of their minds ever decide to let them down.

Sam holds his breath as he waits for the initial thrust—the long, hot slide of belonging, them joined at the hips the way they’re meant to be—but Dean pauses right before he pushes in, like he thinks he should say something more. Something profound or heartfelt after everything that’s happened. But he doesn’t seem to think of anything because there’s a slight moment of silence, and then Sam reaches out to wrap his hand around his brother’s length. Guiding him inside with no words needed, just their eyes locked, a wash of blown-out green and sooty black filling Sam’s vision as Dean slowly pushes into him. Nothing but aching need as he finally makes them whole.

Sam can still do _this_. He can do this easy as breathing. Toni wasn’t able to ruin everything, no matter how she tried. And yes, the idea of doing this the other way around still sits a little unsettling in his gut, but he can tell he’ll be over it soon. As long as he doesn’t have to see her again, he’ll get better.

Dean chokes on a rough moan as he bottoms out, his head hanging down from his neck and their sweat-slick skin pressed close from shoulders to hips, and shit, Sam’s not gonna last long at all. Little, shameless noises punch out of him with every shallow thrust of his brother’s hips and Sam has to dig his fingers into the sides of Dean’s waist to get a fucking grip—figuratively more than literally.

He lets out another desperate sound, a wavering, uneven moan, and Dean reaches out, something deep and complicated in his eyes, as he carefully places his hand over Sam’s mouth. Gentle and slow, but with intent. As if their mom _is_ still in the bunker somewhere. Her intangible presence hovering over them somehow. He leaves his hand there for a conspicuous amount of time, Sam’s muffled sounds of pleasure smothered against the solid flesh of his palm—willingly pliant, as he stares up at his brother in trust and understanding and waits for him to take what he needs from this moment. Letting Dean fuck him silently. And Dean does glance down at his own wrist eventually, lifting his fingers first, and then the rest of his hand. And that's when Sam comes.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean whispers reverently, his voice drowned out under the roaring in Sam’s ears and the sudden, violent release rolling through him. He grips Dean even tighter, probably leaving half-moon marks in blood, and every single muscle in his body locks down tight as he shakes through his orgasm. Sam manages to suck in one breath, tears squeezing out from corners of his eyes, and then Dean’s got him, one arm steady around his upper back and a calloused hand softly stroking up his thigh as he coos nonsense into the bend of his neck. Holding Sam through the cool-down. Completely surrounding him as he continues to thrust his hips.

Dean’s far from done, Sam knows, but he still wants it. He’s already a little over-sensitive, his heart pounding in his ribcage and his brother’s hard, hot cock rubbing sore over his insides, but he doesn’t fucking care. He just wants Dean. All of him.

Sam wraps his legs around his brother’s waist and sinks his teeth into the meat of Dean’s shoulder, urging him on with everything he has. Because _this_ is his brother. Annoying sense of humor and an unending enthusiasm for hunting down monsters, yes, but also gravitas and pain and self-sacrifice and even cruelty sometimes, and without it, he’s a stranger. Sam wants every bit of him. Dean eventually shudders in his arms with a broken groan, wet warmth spilling over tender areas Sam’s sure he’s gonna feel tomorrow, and then he collapses on top of him, dampening the hair and skin of his chest with every deep exhale.

“Thanks for coming back to me,” Sam says after a few lazy minutes, quiet in the still, preserved air of the bunker. He’s not sure if his brother hears him.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

By the time Dean finishes up at the sink in his room, new boxers in place and all damning evidence scrubbed away to leave patches of his skin clean and pink, Sam’s fully dressed again. “Going somewhere?” Dean asks with a raised eyebrow. His voice is shot, hoarse and gravelly, and it really shouldn’t turn Sam on so much so soon after what they just did.

“Figured you’d wanna hit the hay.” He tosses his brother a casual shrug and tries not to let any insecurities seep into his tone.

It scares Sam sometimes, how much he needs Dean. Every time reality brushes up against the still-raw edges of what Sam used to think he could be without his brother. Without this life of theirs. It’s humbling mostly, but also a little annoying and embarrassing, realizing that there’s so many things he _can’t_ do, no matter what he’d thought when he was nineteen. Living without Dean being chief among them.

Dean thumps down onto the bed beside him, rubbing his damp hands over his knees and then casually twining them together as he tries to look nonchalant. “You could stay for a few minutes.”

Sam shakes his head, then lets out a sigh and rests it against his brother’s bare shoulder. “I’ll fall asleep.”

“Yeah duh, Sam,” Dean mutters, bringing a hand up to pet over the back of Sam’s hair. “That’s generally what happens when people go to bed.”

He leans into his brother’s touch with a contented sound and mulls over the muted surprise of Dean actually asking him to stay the night. Sam does occasionally, but it’s usually when they’re too exhausted to get up after a marathon fuck session, almost never just out of a simple request for companionship. It’s a little astonishing really, getting to see Dean with all his layers peeled back after something like this knocks him off his foundation—the rarity of it making moments like these all the more genuine. Who knows, maybe the amnesia curse was actually a blessing in disguise. Sam breathes in Dean’s clean skin and idly wonders if his brother needs him as well. If Sam might be his rock too.

Because he still wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, missing Dean like there’s an ache in his chest before he realizes that he’s out and free and in the bunker. Those are the nights when he wishes that he was still a kid, that he could crawl under his brother’s covers like he used to after a nightmare and let Dean’s warmth and solidity lull him back into calm. But he’s thirty-three goddamn years old now, and if he tried it, Dean would snap at him for waking him up and then look at him like he’s lost his mind if he did it solely to cuddle. Those are the nights that Sam gets up and heads into the kitchen, starting his day at four in the fucking morning instead of trying to go back to sleep alone within those stone walls.

“Stay,” Dean whispers against his temple, and it’s comfort and familiarity and _home_ all in one word—more precious than any bit of want or need he’s ever felt. “Please stay.”

And Sam does.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Bobby Goldsboro's "Broomstick Cowboy"


End file.
